Richard L Reads from his "Poems For Teeth"

My good friend and fellow namer, the excellent poet, Richard Loranger - who we used to call Richard L - reads from his book "Poems for Teeth" on a trip to the Bay Area, taped before he moved back for good. 

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You can see other cool videos like this at my tiny online TV station, www.HalfBeat.com, and you can read about my cool job as a name consultant at www.MarkGunnionNames.com

Ace Flips in the Shower, Breaks Wrist

 Ace Frehley Fractures Wrist, Cancels Dates

Ace, the Backflipper













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See lots of cool KISS videos on my tiny online TV station, www.HalfBeat.com, and read about my cool day job at www.MarkGunnionNames.com

Backflipping Over the Fountains

Backflipping a motorbike over the fountains at Ceasar's Palace - it's Mike Metzger.

Story










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You can see videos of things like this at my tiny online TV station, www.HalfBeat.com, and you can read about my cool day job as a name consultant at www.MarkGunnionNames.com

Back with the Ribbons - a video set to "Our Cultural Mission" by Blue Movie +1

The video was shot as cb and I drove home from winning handfuls of ribbons at the Sonoma County Fair, mine for movies and hers for her beautiful colorful pictures.  She drove, I shot.


Ths music is a live recording of me singing with Blue Movie in 1988 (my vocals were "fortified" years later) at The Oasis, SOMA, SF, USA. You can read more about this song here: Our Cultural Mission

















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You can see lots more of my driving videos - and lots of other stuff! - on my tiny online TV station, www.HalfBeat.com, and you can read about my groovy day job as a name consultant at www.MarkGunnionNames.com

Ride the Rail - straight down this Austrian rail-ride with no brakes!

A great four minute ride on a one-rail coaster down an Austrian mountain.

Worth hitting the full-screen button for!















Tip o' the hat to HuffPo.
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See more coaster videos - and lots of other cool stuff - on my tiny online TV station, www.HalfBeat.com, and check out my groovy day job as a name consultant at www.MarkGunnionNames.com

Cars can be Backflippers, too.

                                                                       Whoopee!

The Colorful Pictures of the Lovely cbrownsf, set to "Rolling Blackouts"

My lovely wife cb is a terrific fine art photographer, and she creates beautiful, colorful pictures from her photographs of the city and country.  A few years back, I picked several of my favorites from among her pictures at that time, and set them to a little tune I'd written and recorded called "Rolling Blackouts".  I hope you like it!










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You can see more of cb's pictures at her lovely website, http://www.cbrownsf.com - and you can see more of my music videos at my tiny online TV station, www.HalfBeat.com , and you can read more about my cool day job as a name consultant at http://www.MarkGunnionNames.com

One of the Best Backflippers Ever - Kid backflips to avoid dodgeball!

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See more cool videos like this on my tiny online TV station, www.HalfBeat.com, and read about my cool day job as a name consultant at www.MarkGunnionNames.com

The Earth from Above - an awesome time-lapse vid

I know I steal lots of stuff from boing boing, but I just couldn't resist this one.  I think it's some of the coolest video ever. 

Low-Light Time Lapse from the International Space Station

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To see other cool movies, check out my tiny online TV station, www.HalfBeat.com, and if you need some effective brand names for a new product, or would like to read about my cool day job as a name consultant, check out www.MarkGunnionNames.com

The Title Designs of Saul Bass

Quick Review of Titles by Saul Bass


Full-screen that puppy!  It'll make you want to make movies.

Busby Berkeley Meets The Matrix - Live!

Excellent street gang dance number, apparently in some traditional campus competition, evokes a grid of rhythmic Agent Smiths.  The only thing that keeps me from enjoying this completely is the sneaking suspicion that if I was in high school in whatever country this is, I'd totally be doing this stuff. 


http://youtu.be/0dsrsV6jwF4

The Blue Meanie Hits Geyserville

Two weeks ago, Geyserville, the tiny burg we call home, hosted its annual Fall Colors Celebration and Hot Rod Show.  Far and away the star of the show - in my eyes, anyway - for the short time it was on display - was this fabulous baby-blue Buick, with a big On/Off switch on the back, known as The Blue Meanie.  I clumsily deleted my pictures of the great German Gothic mirror-silver lettering along the side of the car, but my lovely wife cb got these great pics, showing the awesome rake of the thing, hunched up on its big rear wheels.  After sitting curbside for a short while, the driver got in and drove it off, and when he was a quarter-mile away at the edge of town, he gunned it, and it sounded like an Indy car as he disappeared in a puff of blue-grey smoke.  Was it a dream?  We may never see it again - it was for sale for ten grand.  

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You can see some of my videos about previous years' Geyserville Fall Folors and Hot Rod Show on the "Mark's" channel of my tiny online TV station, www.HalfBeat.com , and you can find out about my cool day job as a name consultant at www.MarkGunnionNames.com

Cops Ram Smuggler's Plane On Runway

Nope, it's not footage from a "Miami Vice" episode - it's actual dash-cam footage of some cops stopping a smuggler plane's getaway, the hard way.

Your Money Face

Show Me Your Money Face

I could do this one.  I just have to get my hands on a fifty!





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Check out some of the links to the right there to see other weird stuff.  And see my day-job resume at www.MarkGunnionNames.com

7 Billion People On Earth - Which One Are You? (I'm #3,070,917,691)

Calculate Your Birth Order - Among All 7 Billion Of Us





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If you need a new corporate identity or product name that's one in a million (or even 1 in 7 billion), check out my day-job webpage: www.MarkGunnionNames.com

Beefy Business Cards!

Not for your hungrier clients.

Business Cards Made of Meat!

Laser-printed on beef jerky - no kidding.

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If you'd like to try some more traditional marketing methods - or maybe some even weirder ones - you'll still need a name.  Check out my day job - name consultant and freelance namer - at Mark Gunnion Names .com

I've Been Telling Them To Do This for Years!

The last suggestion in this Boing-Boing story that is - just stamp out some authentic 1965 Mustangs! 

Ford making New '65 Mustangs - More or Less

This was the car I drove in high school - a '65, 3-speed 289 mil-chocolate brown Mustang

Scary, Pervy Cupcakes

When Nancy, our good pal from Cloverdale, came down on Wednesday for our weekly dinner and cacha game, we scared her with some of these creepy orange cupcakes we'd made for Halloween Week.  They were yummy!

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read about my day job at www.MarkGunnionNames.com

Screaming Contest at the Sonoma County Fair

Our Minute with Gumby

An actual encounter with the man of clay himself.

Back in 2007, CW Nevius asked, "What's In a Name? Just Ask the Namer"

During business hours, I'm known as a freelance namer and name consultant.  Chuck Nevius from the SF Chronicle interviewed me about the job back in 2007.  I've since gotten a haircut.

CW Nevius Interviews Name Consultant and Namer Mark Gunnion

With a h/t to boing-boing.net, some excellent Bo Diddley:

And another one, a bit spookier because of Ms. Bo and the Bo-ettes' excellent dancing:

Hey, Martha, it's a blog.

Here's a link to the YouTube page of the first episode of the late-60s "Batman" TV series.  If you're watching, listening, or doing something else, and like to have something nice playing for the corner of your eye, try this.  Play this video, full-screen it, and here's the important part - turn off the sound.  Without all the dumb,  "campy" late-60s dialogue, the visuals and off-kilter camerawork really do carry a lot of the original mystery and menace of the character's comic roots, from the decades before the series.  As each episode nears the end of its 25-minute playtime, an on-screen link comes up for the next consecutive episode.  I think I know what I'm doing for the next 64 half-hours!  The only downside is that there is quite a lot of the pesky Robin - though in Season three, there's also the wonderful Yvonne Craig as Batgirl!

Batman, Episode 1

Metaphotos: That's what the Internet is for.

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/hundreds-of-tourist-photos

Flipping it in Backwards After a Bounce Pass!

"Flipper Is My Idol": SF Poets Attaboy & Burke from 2006

In 2006, a young pirate radio station called Radio X in San Francisco held a little fundraiser at the groovy Frank Chu hangout 12 Galaxies.  One of the performers was a funky 2-man poetry/spoken/rap wigga duo called Attaboy and Burke. Well, Radio X didn't last long, but Attaboy and Burke's Google trail extends a few years later into the 'aughts.

Here's a few numbers from A+B's performance that night.  Thanks for coming out and supporting local radio, dudes!

Some language slightly NSFW. 

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Amazon:

Burke's Law: Season 1 - Volume 1 (First 16 Episodes)

The Over-Caffeinated Helicopter : It's a Backflipper

Everybody who's seen Roy Scheider's 1983 conspiracy/helicopter epic "Blue Thunder" remembers one thing about helicopters (other than the Blue Thunder, of course): They can't do backflips.

The guys who fly a beverage-sponsored helicopter heard this, though, and said, "Bull!"

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things to buy at Amazon:

Blue Thunder

Red Bull Energy Drink, 8.4-Ounce Cans (Pack of 24)

Rare-ish "King Kong" Clip, With Person-Eating

King Kong Vore Clip, Kinda Rare


I don't remember seeing this clip in most versions of 1933's "King Kong", but I stumbled across it when I tumbled into the YouTube world of "Vore".  Vore clips are ones where a person gets eaten, as in, carnivore.  You can apparently flip through thousands of these in a row, if you're so inclined.

Of course, Fay Wray isn't eaten.  As I'm sure you remember, " 'Twas Beauty killed the beast", even in the Jack Black version.


Amazon:

Max Steiner: King Kong

The Cyclopean Centaur: What I Was Waiting For

For like the second or third time in ten years, I made the same video-viewing error. I wanted to see animator Ray Harryhausen's cyclopean centaur, so I watched "Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger" (featuring John Wayne's Son, Patrick Wayne as Sinbad, Tyrone Power's Daughter Taryn Power, and a very fresh-looking Jane Seymour), which is one of my least favorite Ray Harryhausen movies.  It's got an interminable boat chase from Persia to the Arctic (!), a giant walrus (ooooh, scary) and a poorly done sabertooth tiger at the climax.

But I trudged on, with minimal fast-forwarding, because I kept thinking that the last creature was going to be the cyclopean centaur.  But no, that's actually in "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad".  Duh.  

Pic from the very cool monster movie blog, MonsterBrains:  http://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/

Monster Brains' Golden Voyage page:
http://monsterbrains.blogspot.com/2010/06/ray-harryhausen-golden-voyage-of-sinbad.html

The Centaur and Griffin, YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRQYvAn_q5c

Too bad the charming monsters always have to die in these movies  - Mighty Joe Young notwithstanding.  


Amazon:

The Golden Voyage of Sinbad

You Don't Pay Me to Talk Pretty: Quotes from "Firefly" and "Serenity"

After he created the best, funniest, truest show about high school ever, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", Joss Whedon then created one of the best sci-fi shows and one of the best westerns - *simultaneously*.

Here's a WikiQuotes collection of lotsa dialogue from the "Firefly" series and the movie spin-off, "Serenity".  After we get through "The Wire", I wanna watch my complete "Firefly" again.



http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Firefly

                          art by the great Jason Palmer


Serenity (Collector's Edition)

Even a Dog Can Be a Backflipper

                                                   Poodle Salt & Pepper Shaker Set

"The Laugh Muscles", featuring colorful pictures by CBrown, with music by Intelligent and Loud

Here's a tune I cut together out of some songs John and I worked on as Intelligent and Loud, called "The Laugh Muscles".  The images are some colorful pictures from my wife, fabulous fine art photographer cbrown.  You can see lots more pictures of hers at her cool website, www.CBrownSF.com

Jello Biafra Interview from 1982 for SKANK Magazine

My good friend Luke Cole was a brilliant, pioneering lawyer, and you can click on his name or here to learn more about his amazing life and career. But before all that, he was just the cub reporter on the punk rock beat for SKANK Magazine, when he was at Stanford in 1982. As such, he got the job of interviewing Jello Biafra, lead singer for San Francisco's legendary Dead Kennedys, when they came through Palo Alto. Here's the 11-minute 1-on-1 interview, where the future corporate-butt-kicking attorney and inventor of the practice of Environmental Justice probes Mr. Biafra on fashion, religion, politics, the band's name, and why he liked playing the Mab.





Also linked below are two other bits of audio from that night:

• Jello berating the audience for being conformist jugheads, after one of them only hooted and grunted when Jello gave him the microphone.

• For Brave Ears only - a raw, noisy audience-Walkman recording of a couple of songs from that night: "Holiday In Cambodia", the sounds of the crowd demanding more, and the encore "Rawhide". This very dodgy recording is presented only for the sake of evoking memories of those dank, beery halls, and those nights when the air shook with punk energy. I even included a bit of the ghastly prog-rock tune the club's DJ immediately put on to clear the room.

Video for "Dan's Pants" by Red English

Here's a latter-day music video by Red English, my 2-man band with Jim H.  This tune, "Dan's Pants" was created by our sending a GarageBand file back and forth.  I shot the vid over at McLaren Park in San Francisco. 

Trailer from "20 Million Miles to Earth"

A Blog of Great Sci Fi Art, with Weekly Updates

Here's a blog full of great sci fi art, with weekly featured-artist updates:

Concept Ships

Wheelchair Backflip - Big Air, But There's Better Out There

Okay, it's like a dog playing the violin, it's impressive that he does it at all - but I've seen this guy do a backflip on a tiny indoor half-pipe no taller than four feet, which is really a lot scarier.  Still, for fans of big air, and backflips - which I *am* - this is great video.

I gather from the vid that the guy in the wheelchair is going by the catchy name "Wheels".


UPDATE:  So, his name is Aaron "Wheelz" Fotheringham, and there's lots of videos of him out there, inclduing building up to and pulling off a Double Backflip.  Vid to come over the next many months. 

Trailer for Ray Harryhausen's "It Came From Beneath the Sea"

"Building School House Plaza" by Mark Gunnion

Using a variety of time-lapse techniques, and with a little head-bobber track of my own creation, here's the story of the building of the mall across the street. 

Awesome Gallery of Kit-Bashed "Star Trek" Universe Craft

Here's a great collection of scrap model versions of imagined ships for Star Trek fleets:

http://www.inpayne.com/models/kitbash/trekpage.html

Build your own!

Star Trek---3 Piece Space Ship Adversary set--Plastic Models

Travis's Double Backflip

Flying Saucer Smashes Into Washington Monument!

For my Harryhausen fan readers, here's an excellent - if dead simple - 3-piece model of a famous moment from "Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers"

Great stuff found by digging through http://www.starshipmodeler.com/

Ray Harryhausen Collection (+ BD Live) (20 Million Miles to Earth, Earth vs. Flying Saucers, It Came from Beneath the Sea, 7th Voyage of Sinbad) [Blu-ray]

"Geyserville Firefight" by Mark Gunnion

There was a fire in the hills of our little valley up here, and the local fire crews brought in a couple of aircraft to knock it back.  This bit of video keeps an eye on the plane and the chopper as the whirl around, throwing water and fire retardent on the flames. 

I wrote and played the soundtrack, as well as shooting and editing the footage. 

Too Many Backflips (Turn your volume down, tho)

The soundtrack didn't do much for me, but this hard-working backflipper does everything he can to amuse you.

Pure Fun 12-Foot Trampoline and Enclosure Set

"The Wildlife of San Francisco" by Mark Gunnion

Here's a little video featuring some of the wild animals I saw one sunny weekend in San Francisco, where I lived for almost 25 years.

Most of the music is mine, except the dreamy long drifty bit in the middle, which is me and Jim improvising as "Red English".


Guitar Soloing - The Contemporary Guide to Improvisation - Book and CD Pack

The Best Sequel Ever? The Penultimate Scene from "The Bride of Frankenstein"

The amazing "animation" of Elsa Lanchester as The Bride, with Colin Clive repeating his greatest role as Frankenstein, Boris Karloff as The Monster,  and yes, that's Dwight Frye in there as the mad assistant, in a film considered (along with "The Godfather Part II") as one of the very few sequels better than the original.

The Bride of Frankenstein (Universal Studios Classic Monster Collection)

Scrap Models by Other People

This is a great scratch-built model "imagineered" by its maker.  This is my favorite kind of model - what I always called a "scrap model", but which are also referred to these days as "kit-bashed":

Another great scrap model, this ship and its lunar base have a totally cool night-time mode with tiny, built-in lights:

 

Testor Plastic Cement 

Double Backflippers

Backflipper at school

Sonoma Seen

Here's some beautiful pictures from our new home, northern Sonoma County. 

A Mark Gunnion video: "The Hatchery at Lake Sonoma"

Here's some video I shot at the Lake Sonoma Trout Hatchery up here in the Northern Wine Country.

The weirdo music is my own. 

It's very peaceful and spacy.

Richard Brautigan's Trout Fishing in America, The Pill versus The Springhill Mine Disaster, and In Watermelon Sugar

Mick and Merry Request Shelter

One of the great "back-up" vocal takes of all time, Merry Clayton was the female vocalist on The Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter".  This a capella mix features Merry's and Mick's takes.  Amazing rock&roll-osity.

For Your Pre-Game: My 8-Hour Radio Special on The 100 Best Records Evah

Back in '09 and '10, I was a DJ on a pirate radio station in San Francisco called FCC Free Radio.  They're now an online-only outlet, available at www.FCCfreeRadio.com.  My show was called "Freeform Purple", and I had great fun doing the two-hour weekly show on Friday afternoons (I actually constructed the shows Thursday nights and shot them into the broadcast server at 3 a.m., and the computer played them in the afternoon).

To celebrate my one-year anniversary at the station, I broadcast a special series of shows featuring my very personal selections for the 100 Best Records Evah.  It turned into quite a production, and ultimately took me four weeks, and eight hours to get all the way through.  Here, for the first time in one location, are all eight hours of the special, in order, playable in handy one-hour chunks.

Enjoy!      

Love,
DJ Junglebook    (AKA Mark G) 


































Pirate Radio

Backflipper!

The Cyclops from "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad"

One of my favorite pieces of film, Ray Harryhausen's astounding Cyclops:

The 7th Voyage of Sinbad